The present invention relates to shaped emissive surfaces and more specifically to emissive shapes configured to support several persons working together to share information in a dyadic or multi-person environment as well as to systems that support ubiquitous information and virtual desktop access.
Many high tech and service sector jobs require employees to work in many different environments including individually at personal work stations, in a collaborative setting with other employees and sometimes customers or clients and remotely in airports, at client locations, at employer locations distant from an employee's work station, etc. Many of these jobs require employees to access, manipulate and share electronically stored information regardless of employee location. To access and share information, employees often use some type of computing device as an interface and information sharing device. Thus, for instance, when an employee is located at a work station at a company headquarters, the employee may use a computing device to access and manipulate computer applications, documents, CAD drawings, etc., for various purposes. Often in these cases an employee works at an assigned and non-portable work station. Because these stations are not intended to be portable, these stations often have relatively large and heavy displays that provide large emissive surfaces for presenting user content.
When the employee is located in an airport and traveling to visit a client, the employee may use a portable computing device to access and manipulate applications and other content. When the employee is located in a conference room at a client site, the employee may use a computing device to access and share information with the client.
The most common way to provide employees with ubiquitous access to and ability to manipulate and share information has been to provide portable personal computing devices to each employee. For instance, a laptop, pad computing device, smart phone, etc., is often provided to each company employee enabling the employee to access information at a personal work station, remotely or in a shared collaboration space.
Because portable personal computing devices often have relatively small display screens, it is common to provide additional relatively stationary peripheral input and output devices for use in combination with the portable devices. For instance, many work stations are equipped with one or more stationary relatively large display screens that can be linked to a personal computing device so that an employee can view and manipulate content in several different computer applications at the same time. As another instance, many shared collaboration spaces are equipped with a projector and large screen or a large flat panel display adjacent a conference table where a personal computing device can be linked to the projector or display to share information with a group of employees in the shared space.
A laptop computer is generally larger than other personal computing devices and therefore is more difficult to transport. Nevertheless, there are several advantages to the laptop form factor that make the laptop the personal computing device of choice for many employees in many industries. In this regard, most laptops include both a display screen and a mechanical keyboard that is particularly useful for entering text information into a computing device. In addition, while other personal computing devices include displays, the display on a typical laptop is large enough for a user to interact generally effectively with at least one application at a time. Moreover, people generally like to read from surfaces that are at least somewhat vertically oriented (as opposed to on a horizontal surface). A laptop computer typically includes a display supported at an adjustable display angle so that the angle of the display surface can be oriented at any desired angle. Furthermore, laptop displays offer at least some privacy for information displayed thereon (i.e., persons across from or to the side of a laptop user around a conference table cannot easily see information presented on the laptop display) which makes the laptop advantageous in a shared collaboration space. In addition, while providing at least some privacy for information displayed, the top edge of a laptop display is low enough that most users can peer over the top edge thereof to make or maintain eye contact with conferees across a conference table which facilitates better communication.
Because of the advantages of the laptop form factor, many peripherals for these devices have been developed that can be combined with the smaller devices so that the combinations have form factors more like traditional laptops. For instance, hundreds of products now exist for holding a pad type display screen at a somewhat vertical angle for reading purposes. As another instance there are hundreds of different types of mechanical keyboards on the market that link with pad type devices to aid text entry.
While laptops and combinations of relatively large peripheral display screens have worked well in the past, this solution to facilitating ubiquitous acces to information has several shortcomings. First, this solution requires employees to transport computing devices. While small devices are relatively simple to transport, they do not provide the advantages associated with the laptop form factor discussed above. Laptops are relatively large and burdensome to carry.
Second, portable personal computing devices can be damaged or destroyed if dropped during transport or if exposed to liquids (e.g., a cup of coffee is spilled on the device). Similarly, portable devices can be lost. These devices are often expensive to replace and it can take several days to replace or repair a damaged device or to replace a lost device which can adversely affect employee productivity.
Third, portable personal computing devices can be stolen. In at least some operating states, confidential personal and company information may be accessible via a stolen portable device.
Fourth, while typical laptop display screens are large enough to adequately interact with at least one application, the screens are often too small to provide optimal screen space to support all applications and supporting on screen tools that most employees would like to access at one time. Thus, when an employee uses a laptop to work remotely or to work in a shared collaboration space, the personal and somewhat private screen space provided by the laptop display makes individual work difficult at best.
Fifth, while employees can move between personal work station spaces and shared collaboration spaces to optimally facilitate individual activities and shared collaborative activities using large peripheral displays, it is believed that in at least some cases the best working environment is one where employees have the option, within a single setting, to work individually with optimized tools for individual work and to work with others in a sharing fashion, again with optimized tools for sharing information and collaborating. To this end, instead of working individually for 7 hours in personal work station spaces and then having a one hour collaboration session in a shared collaboration space, in at least some cases it will be better for employees to work together, on and off, during an entire work day period, where conferees can share ideas and information immediately and personally as the ideas are formed and the information comes to light, aided and effectively encouraged by the tools provided within the space.
Sixth, where personal work stations are separate from shared collaboration spaces, the costs associated with the space including tools and square footage increase appreciably.